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Jordan LaRocca

Lindsay Ferrara

English 101

9 November 2021

Why you Must Stop Procrastination

When people talk about procrastination, it is mostly about procrastinating school

assignments like a project or an essay. It's the kind of procrastination that people usually joke

about or laugh about. There are also other kinds that are less talked about, though everyone has

still gone through it. This kind of procrastination does not have deadlines and is much longer

than the typical school project. It is harmful to our mental health and can be the cause of much of

the depression and anxiety in our lives. Not only does procrastination cause internal

consequences but it also creates external consequences. Some people though actually support

procrastination, they say they work better under the pressure. While that may be true for some,

the vast majority are not those people. Even those people that say they work better under

pressure are still creating unnecessary stress in their lives from working right up to the deadline.

Procrastination is the worst habit that people can have, and we should all try to actively stop

procrastinating. While Procrastination is impossible to avoid entirely, we can still actively try to

avoid procrastinating so we can sooth the negative effects of the lethal habit.

Everyone knows about the procrastination cycle; you may not know its name, but you

have certainly gone through the cycle. According to Roy Sandip, “The big culprit here is regret.

It’s a story that goes around in a predictable circle: Procrastinators begin with hope, then go into

anxiety, guilt, and self-criticism, and end up in regret. Next project, same cycle.” This cycle is
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lethal to our mental health and is the reason for a lot of depression in our lives. Leading up to the

due date of any project or assignment you tell yourself okay I will do this assignment today, so I

do not have to worry about it. Then the day passes, and the next day, and the next. During this

entire process all you are thinking about is the assignment. You dread doing the assignment all

day and it builds up this anxiety in you. Then suddenly the day that that the assignment is due

comes along, and an explosion of stress and depression set in. Not only do you have to do the

assignment that you have been dreading for the past week, now you have also made it harder

because you have not even looked at the assignment in a week or done any work on it at all. But

you lock in and do the assignment and hand it in. Now you have a moment to relax, but wait, you

have another assignment that you have been putting off that’s due tomorrow. The depression and

anxiety set it again and this process keeps on going, this is the nasty procrastination cycle.

The reason I wrote this essay in the first place is because of Tim Urbans Ted Talk Inside

the Mind of a Master Procrastinator. I talk about this Ted Talk in my Literacy Narrative above.

He explains the procrastinator system which is pretty much the procrastinator cycle, except he

uses much simpler and funny ways to explain it. It may be a joke or something to laugh at, but

the system he describes is a very destructive one. He talks about the dark playground, “The fun

you have in the dark playground isn't actually fun because it's completely unearned and the air is

filled with guilt, dread, anxiety, self-hatred, and all those good procrastinator feelings.” This is

when you have a project due in three days, but you instead go out with your friends or watch TV.

Those are fun activities, but they are not really fun because the whole time you are just thinking

about that project you have due in three days. Every passing hour you tell yourself you will start

the project in the next hour, and you do not. While this goes on anxiety and nervousness builds

up inside of you. If we instead did not procrastinate, we would be able to get our work done early
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and be able to enjoy our leisure activities instead of going into the dark playground. For many of

us, myself included, we put off a project because we think we do not know how to do it, or we

think it is just going to be a painful project to make. But the earlier you start the more time you

will have to figure it out and the more time you will have to get help from your teacher. With

every passing hour and day, you put more pressure on yourself and make the assignment that

much more difficult.

Some people would disagree with the last statement in the last paragraph. They say that

putting off work does not make the work harder. These people say it actually makes it easier, in

fact, some people support procrastination. They say they work better under pressure during the

time crunch. In the article “Rethinking Procrastination” the authors state that there are two

distinct types of procrastinators, active procrastinators, and passive procrastinators. They explain

the difference as, “Affectively, when a deadline approaches, passive procrastinators feel

pressured and become pessimistic in their outlook, especially about their ability to achieve

satisfactory results. Their thoughts of self-doubt and inadequacy increase the chance of failure

and induce feelings of guilt and depression. Active procrastinators, on the other hand, like to

work under pressure. When faced with last-minute tasks, they feel challenged and motivated, and

that feeling immunizes them against the kind of suffering common in passive procrastinators”

(Angela Hsin Chun Chu, Jin Nam Choi). While there may be active procrastinators, and it may

be true that they work better under pressure, the vast majority of people are not this type of

procrastinator. It is an exceedingly small number of people that would say they enjoy working

under pressure, and an even less number that would say their best work comes from being under

pressure. This is proven in my survey monkey. I sent a survey about procrastination to my high

school teachers. 67% said that they do not procrastinate on purpose and only 38% said they work
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well under pressure. Most people would not intentionally delay work and would like to finish all

their work as early as possible, so they do not have to worry about it. Obviously, this does not

happen though, but to say that work is easier when you push it back is nonsense.

Two professors, David Arnott and Scott Dacko, did a study to see the effects of

procrastination. There were 777 students, and they were given four weeks to do an assignment,

669 or 86% of them waited until the last day to submit the assignment. The professors then

analyzed the study and looked at the last 24 hours. They wanted to see if handing the assignment

in at various times affected their grades. They found the later you handed it in the worst grade

you got, “It was as if every passing hour was chipping away their scores. The worse the

procrastination, the worse were the marks. So clear was the pattern that those who handed in

their assignments at the last minute, had the worst grades of all. In fact, these last-minute guys

saw a full 5% drop in their marks over those who had checked in their tasks before the start of

the last day”(Roy). This means that you would get a worse grade the closer you handed your

assignment in to the time that it was due. This proves that delaying your work only makes it

harder and debunks that most people can work better under pressure. This is another reason why

you must stop your procrastination, and you cannot use the excuse that you work better under

pressure if you are getting worse grades the later you hand any assignment in.

As I said before, procrastination is deadly to your mental health. It can make any

happiness you have go away simply because you have 5 assignments due at the end of work.

Also, the thing is that from the outside looking in it could look like you are doing great, but

really you are drowning in work or some other issues that you have been putting off. In a book

called Procrastination it talks about this, “To an outside observer, many of these people appear

to be doing just fine. They may be highly successful, like the lawyer who heads his own firm or
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the women who is able to manage three children, volunteer work, and a full-time job. But inside

they feel miserable. They are frustrated and angry with themselves because procrastinating has

prevented them from doing all they think they are capable of. Although they appear to be doing

well, they suffer inside.” Usually when it is the outside looking, they see the school

procrastination because you joke about it, but they never really see procrastination without

deadlines, and this is the deadly stuff. As Tim Urban says, “It's usually suffered quietly and

privately, and it can be the be the source of a lot of long-term unhappiness and regrets” This is

mostly with long term procrastination. This could be working on a starting your career, fixing

your car, or simply working on a relationship. It is hard to see when somebody is suffering from

depression from procrastination unless they open about it, but this never happens because people

do not even realize they are procrastinating. This procrastination is never identified or taken care

of because there is no due date, that errand just never gets done. This goes to show that even if

you are an active procrastinator, you will also still suffer from depression and anxiety because

the worst procrastination is when there is no deadline, which means there is no last-minute

scramble. Even when there are deadlines active procrastinators can never really enjoy their

success because once you are done with the all nighter and the procrastination of one assignment,

there is then the next assignment to start worrying about. There are no breaks in procrastination,

that is why to drop the habit you must do it now. You cant tell yourself okay on this date I will

stop procrastinating and I will get my work done. You are procrastinating procrastination! You

will never end the cycle if you do not start right now. You cannot end procrastination with more

procrastination, it will just add more things to your to do list.

Now, it is no simple task to stop procrastinating. I may have said you have to start right

now, but it is not as simple as that. For most of us procrastination is something we have done our
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whole lives, and it is impossible to break a lifetime habit in just one day. But if you do not start

today then you will never start. The first thing you should do is make a list of everything you

need to do. Once you make this list it will give you loads of anxiety, because it's such a lengthy

list. This is important though; it lets you see what this terrible habit has done to you. Now to stop

this habit you want to take the things you could do today on that to-do list and do them. First this

will make the list smaller and reduce your anxiety, it will also give you confidence and allow you

to start getting on a roll. Next you want to take the hardest and biggest to-do’s and make smaller

objectives inside of them. You then want to do each of these smaller objectives one by one. This

will make it easier because now it does not seem as big or as difficult as it was before. Doing

harder assignments first makes it more likely for you to not procrastinate at all because most of

the challenging work is already done. Remember we usually procrastinate when we think

something is hard or difficult. Now while doing these projects, you must limit your distractions.

The best way I find to do this is to find a nice quiet place to work. Then you want to completely

since your phone. Seekan suggests in the “Effects of Procrastination”, “If you set 30 minutes

timer then in that 30 minutes you just have to work and nothing else no social media no cell

phone nothing.” Then you can take a 30-minute break. But during those 30 minutes of work and

nothing else, you will get tons of work done because you are completely focused on the work.

This is the best way for me to stop procrastination and in stopping my procrastination I stop most

of my depression and low confidence.

Remember it will not be easy to stop procrastinating but actively trying to stop we can

really do wonderful things for our mind and body. Procrastination is the single worst habit that

humans have, and most people do in fact have the habit. It causes depression and anxiety in our

lives because we delay our work and allow ourselves to become bogged down in our work.
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Putting off your work also makes the work more difficult. Even if you do “work better under

pressure” it still creates unnecessary stress in your life. You will also never be able to genuinely

appreciate your accomplishments because you are too busy worrying about what you have due

next. Therefore, you must stop procrastinating now, because if you do not start now, you will

never start.

Works Cited

Burka, Jane B., and Lenora M. Yuen. Procrastination Why You Do It, What to Do about It Now.

Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA.: Da Capo, 2008. Lifelong Books Procrastination. Web.

Chun Chu, Angela Hsin, and Jin Nam Choi. "Rethinking Procrastination: Positive Effects of

"Active" Procrastination Behavior on Attitudes and Performance." The Journal of Social

Psychology 145.3 (2005): 245-64. Web.

Roy, Sandip. “What Procrastination Does to Your Happiness?” Lifehack, Lifehack, 11 Apr.

2016, https://www.lifehack.org/382332/what-does-procrastination-your-happiness.

SeeKen. “Effects of Procrastination.” SeeKen, 22 Mar. 2018, https://seeken.org/effects-of-

procrastination/.

Urban, Tim, director. Inside the Mind of a Master Procrastinator. Ted Talk, 6 Apr. 2016, .com.

Accessed 12 Dec. 2021.

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